Saturday, December 03, 2005

Gone to Dubai

I have gone to Dubai for four days to chair a panel on Syria for the Arab Thought forum and will not take my computer or be posting. Ayman Abdulnour of all4Syria, Junbulat Shikay of Ra'i al-Aam and Ziad Haidar or as-Safir and al-Arabiya are also going.

Where the hell did this Ayman abdealnur come from? You hear about him more than king Asad the 2nd nowadays.Is he the new generation of bathist? They talk the talk but never walk the walk. Him and people like him are as corrupt as their Alawi masters

No fancy buildings, no fancy lightings, no fancy streets, just some random buildings and few cars, a bit of street lights here and there of which some may be broken.

Yet, this is my favorite city in the world, Damascus. I cannot have enough of this view, the view from my building. Soon enough, my eyes will be missing it, not my heart however.

Damascus has this magic, that whenever you feel down and depressed, feel lonely and blue. It can always make you feel better just by looking at it. It gives hope and pride. I look there; I don’t just see a city that is trying to be modern with no success. I simply see a city that is old enough to have known all the civilizations that ever existed on this planet. A city with history full of defeats and victories; a city that has survived all.

You just have to know where to look from, and where to look at, but most, you have to know how to look!

To put it in a nutshell, American policy makers and negotiators start with the premise that there is a problem to be solved and that there is a way to solve it. Arabs start with the premise that there is a problem to be solved, and probably no way to solve it that would benefit them personally as much as the status quo. Saving face is the priority- appearances, smoke and mirrors, is a means of protection. From the American perspective, then, Arabs never start from the base of honesty or integrity. From the Arab perspectives, Americans are arrogant with their plans and pushy with their over-confidence in themselves. Trust me, for Americans, it is like pushing a wet noodle up a very steep hill. Sisyphus had it easy by comparison.

One of Saddam's talents was his ability to play the US. He knew how to keep us anxious- alternating cooperation with resistance. He would welcome the inspectors one day, saying he had nothing to hide, but then to save face, he'd have to keep them locked out of certain places. The North Koreans play the same game.

He was widely admired in the region for kicking sand in the face of the U.S., something other Arab countries didn't dare to do. So he had to keep up appearances. In the end, it looked like he was always one step ahead of the U.S./ UN. Saddam was waiting out the sanctions and making overtures to Europeans.

Now let's look at Syria. Syria was implicated in the assassination of Hariri. The UN launched an investigation, in which Syria refused to participate. Then this week, a key witness, Hassam Taher Hassam, comes out on Syrian state TV, and says that he was offered bribes by the Hariri family to give false testimony to the UN investigators. Thus, Syria is now working hard to discredit the UN probe, turning it into a joke. It is a classic stalling stunt- similar to what we saw with Saddam and weapons inspectors. Syria has been found out and it has to save face.

We have done our job in Iraq. We have delivered what we promised- a democratically elected government. We have admitted to mistakes, bad decisions, etc. But at this point, if the country is a mess, it is because insurgents, both Iraqis and others have made this so. Let's not let the face-saving game continue so that Iraqis can refuse to take responsibility.

I am a Lebanese citizen born in Beirut, arrested by the Syrian occupation forces in 1991. I spent five years in the Syrian Mazzeh prison. Hereunder is my testimony to the Lebanese, Arab and international public opinions in order to reveal what the Lebanese face in brutal coercion and terrorism unequaled even in the worst films of terror and the nazi and fascist concentration camps.

I hope this testimony will find its way to the Lebanese, Arab and international media in order to spur international organizations and Ministries of Foreign Affairs to intervene and liberate the hundreds of Lebanese prisoners subject to daily torture in the Syrian prisons only because they demand Lebanon's freedom, independence and sovereignty.I also hope the leaders of the Free World will read my testimony and that it will prompt them to intervene for the liberation of Lebanese political prisoners in Syria and ending the Syrian occupation of Lebanon and the removal of its yoke from his people in distress who are governed by a gang of yes-men under Syrian control.

My readers will forgive me for not revealing my name because I am still living in Lebanon and wish to avoid being arrested again and "skinned alive", as Ghazi Kanaan, the chief of the Syrian Mokhabarat (Secret Service) in Lebanon, threatened me before liberating me.My way to Golgotha began as I was going to work in my private car. When I left the car before my office, a bunch of armed men surrounded me pointing their Kalashnikovs to my face. They introduced themselves saying: "Don't move or say anything. We are from the Syrian Mokhabarat and you are under arrest." No sooner had their chief stopped speaking than two of his men rushed upon me and placed a black bag over my head and handcuffed me.

They then threw me in the trunk of the car and sped away.I took to wonder what they wanted from me, a retired soldier from the Lebanese Army since about two years with no military activity since then,except being a member of a local society for the promotion of our region and the living conditions of its inhabitants. As for my political inclinations they consist in opposing Syrian occupation to our country, as is the case of most of my countrymen. I am also active as a partisan of General Michel Aoun in the two Metn districts. I soon got my answer, since the car stopped and my kidnappers retrieved me from the trunk of the car and pushed me, handcuffed and my head still in the black bag, down a long stairs to a moist and mouldy underground cell, where I could smell the sea.

I immediately realized that I was detained in the notorious Hotel Beau Rivage, transformed by the Syrian Mokhabarat into a Beirut central prison and Mokhabarat Head Quarters, headed by Colonel Rustom Ghazaleh and his henchmen. The blows, kicks and curses did not stop since I was retrieved from the car and until I reached the black cell measuring 1.50 cm long by 80 cm wide.They hollered all the way curses on the Lebanese, saying in the Syrian accent: "We want to fuck the greatest Lebanese. The greatest Lebanese is no better than my shoe. Who do you think you prostitutes are to oppose us?"

As well as other hair raising curses. They then threw me in the cell that is more like a tomb. A couple of hours later, the door opened and the henchmen came in, put the black bag again over my head and pushed me before them through the corridor separating the cells up to the inquisition room, where they sat me on a metal chair specially designed for the inquest. They cursed the Lebanese and the Maronite Patriarch Mar Nasrallah Sfeir, saying he was senile and stupid. They left no Christian leader without cursing him, saying: "You, prostitutes, do not want the Syrians? We shall settle accounts with you!

By God, we shall skin you alive?"A little later, silence fell in the room upon the entry of some higher-ranking elements as I inferred from the henchmen who addressed them as "sir".The henchmen undressed - or rather tore off my clothes - while I was still handcuffed and the black bag over my head. Thereupon, they showered me with very cold water and fell upon me, boxing and beating me with batons.

Bleeding from my nose and mouth, I couldn't count the blows I received, and I couldn't see where the as absolutely opaque. I felt like a cat in a bag.

Accusations of gathering information on the Syrian Army in my region on behalf of Israel fell upon me from all sides. And every time I denied the accusations, they rotation between interrogation and return to the cell continued until I lost all sense of space and time. I learned that this lasted for three days from my torturers and the investigators when they informed me that preliminary investigation in the "Beau Rivage prison". We were a group of nine detainees from various Lebanese regions when we were placed on a truck, our heads in bags, handcuffed and with our feet tied. The cold was intense and it was raining heavily as we left Beirut. We knew that we had reached Dahr El-Baydar - the pass in the western mountain chain separating the coast from the Beqaa - when our tortured members shivered from cold and the pain in our open wounds. We reached the Anjar penitentiary in the Beqaa valley, which is the central penitentiary upon which are sent detainees from Beirut, the South, the Mountain and the North, before transferring them to Syrian prisons.

Originally, the Anjar prison was a stable for horses that was requisitioned by the Syrians upon invading Lebanon and transformed into a vast prison without alteration other than converting the horseshoeing room into a torture chamber, fitted with the most sophisticated instruments of torture.

The Anjar prison is not very large because it serves only, as I already said, a grouping center for the detainees who were either liberated and returned home, or transferred to the prisons of terror inside Syria. The chief of Syrian military intelligence, General Ghazi Kanaan commands personally the Anjar prison, his assistant is General Adnan Balloul, nicknamed the "Beast".

He is seconded by Lieutenant Sleiman Salameh who commands the Alaouite investigation team who are constantly thirsty for Lebanese blood. In Anjar, they lined us up before a wall and removed the bags from our heads in order to enable General Ghazi Kanaan to examine our faces closely. He did in fact come up to us and looked at each of us individually, asking: "Who is this one?" A Moukhabarat officer, carrying a list gave our name. Kanaan passed us in review for about a quarter of an hour before pronouncing a political speech saying: "Anyone in Lebanon who speaks a word against Syria shall be skinned alive [the words skin alive are the most used by the Syrians against the Lebanese]. We shall transfer you forthwith to Syria where we shall see what you know, and I advise you to tell us everything, thereby saving yourselves suffering. Otherwise, you will never return to your relatives in Lebanon again?"

Kanaan made a long speech of which I don't remember much since it was such a long time ago. I remember that one of the detainees tried to speak, but one of the Moukhabarat henchmen fell upon him hitting him with the haft of his gun. They covered our heads again with bags and put us back in a truck on our way to Syria.

"Whoever enters is lost, and whoever leaves is reborn" is the slogan written at the entrance of the Mazzeh prison, or of the Palestinian investigation branch affiliated to the Syrian Army secret service. This prison is the reception center entered by thousands of Lebanese who were unheard of since. We were nine in number coming from various Lebanese regions.

They brought us down from the truck and removed the bags from our heads and lined us up.In the prison courtyard, the Syrian colonel Munir Abrass, head of investigation in the Palestinian branch, received us. About 20 soldiers carrying batons and whips that stared at us with eyes gleaming with hatred surrounded him, as if we were enemies since a long time or Israeli soldiers.

When the truck and its escorting Moukhabarat car left, the soldiers of Abrass surrounded us and started beating us without preliminaries while cursing us and shouting: "We shall fuck you and crush the biggest head under our shoe?" followed by a long series of curses denoting a latent hatred for everything Lebanese. It was as if they regarded the Lebanese as insects that must be eradicated for the welfare of Syria and its glory?

The round of beating stopped and we huddled together, bleeding from every part of our bodies. It was already night in Damascus and very cold. I will never forget that night all my life. We were praying all the saints and prophets for mercy, but there was only deaf ears. Voracious wolves are more merciful to their game than the Syrian torturers. A few moments later, they turned upon us jets of ice-cold water. I don't know if their intention was to wash us up. At any rate, after years spent in the Mazzeh prison I found out that this was the standard procedure of receiving prisoners, especially if they were an important bunch like us. They put the bags again over our heads and transferred us to solitary cells that are very dark rooms, some 40 meters underground of I believe 80 cm. width by 180 cm. long in which the detainee cannot stand. Its door was of iron with a small window opening from the exterior through which the jailer presented us what they called "food".General Mazhar Fares, the chief of the Palestine section and his henchmen were responsible for questioning me.They used to transfer me daily from the solitary cell to the investigation room with the black bag over my head. When I reached the middle of the room the bag was removed and I could see Fares sitting on a chair smoking a cigar or drinking a cup of coffee with the henchmen standing all around him. He usually started his investigation with a flow of curses against the Lebanese and accused us of collaborating with Israel, after which the beating would start without other preliminaries. Words cannot fully represent what I suffered in the Syrian jail: They whipped me and flogged me with a scourge that is a terrible instrument of torture.

They pulled out my fingernails and my toenails.

They beat me on my genitals and impaled me with sharp instruments.

They applied electric shocks to my nose, my ears and my throat.

They burned me with cigars and cigarettes.

They sat me on the German chair (sic!).

They hanged me on a wheel.

They hanged me for nine days by a "ghost" winch with the black bag over my head.

They placed salt on my wounds until I shrieked and fainted from pain and was awakened by a jet of water, after which they resumed the beating. I spent the 150 days of investigation in the solitary cell, or "tomb" as the prisoners called it, during which I ate what was given me with my bare hands like an animal as shown in films. I never knew what I ate except that I could distinguish bread crumbs and a few olives.

Often, extenuated from suffering I slept long hours on end and stooled and urinated in what was left of my clothes.I will never forget the commandant of the Mazzeh prison, Captain Bassam Hassan; weighing about 150 kgs he would pounce like a wolf, thrashing at what was left of me. Prisoners later told me that he used to seek inspiration for new ways of torture from horror films he saw. Many Lebanese detainees died in Mazzeh under the torture inflicted by Captain Bassam Hassan and his henchmen composed of 14 officers, of whom I still remember Salah Zoghbi, Abdul Razzak Halabi, Bassam Mustapha, Housam Succar and Mohamad Mufleh and a host of assistants and soldiers we called "torturers".

Thereupon, they made me sign a document I did not know its contents. They then allowed me to bathe. After which they shaved my hair and gave me clothes similar to a Syrian soldier's uniform. Then one of the torturers told me: "We have given you a new name? This, henceforth, will be your name until you leave here. Take good care not to pronounce your true name before the other prisoners. You must forget it completely. Otherwise, we shall return you to the "tomb". Understand? Giving me a new name would mean, as far as the Syrian authorities are concerned, that I am not present and never entered a Syrian jail. And this is the situation of every Lebanese prisoner in Syrian jailswhose their parents ask about them in vain, since their names are not found on the prison registers. It is necessary to oblige the Syrian authorities to reveal all the true names. They transferred me to a large prison cell containing a number of Lebanese and Jordanian young men, all accused of endangering Syrian security!

We were about 25 prisoners in an underground cell of an area not exceeding 12 meters square. In summer we used to stifle from the heat and humidity, and in winter we froze from the cold. Every now and then, they used to administer to us, as a reminder, a round of beating.Night in the Mazzeh prison was absolutely frightful and worse than in any horror film: calm, then shrieks, even howls of pain from electric shocks or other "civilized" means, specialty of the Syrian Mokhabarat, that cut your breath. Then calm again, followed with worse shrieks and howls! Oh God will this night never end! The Muslim prisoners would whisper Allah akbar, while we, the Christians, would murmur prayers to the Holy Virgin.

Oh God will this night never end! I later learned that my parents tried to contact me in jail after having localized me by bribing a Syrian officer. They came to the prison door but Bassam Hassan, its commandant resolutely denied the presence of any Lebanese in his prison.

But this did not prevent him, along with other Syrian Mokhabarat officers in Lebanon, headed by Ghazi Kanaan, Rustom Ghazaleh and Adnan Balloul from blackmailing the parents of the prisoners. We were about 150 Lebanese detained in the Mazzeh prison, yet they constantly refused to admit the presence of any Lebanese. They even forced us to speak with a Syrian accent in order to erase our trace.

There was no medical assistance in the Syrian jails or trials for most of the detainees. As for the tribunal Lebanese, not all, it was the "Third Field Court of the Syrian troops in Lebanon". This means that the Syrian Army was effectively imposing martial law against the Lebanese despite the claim of the dummy regime in Beirut that they form an authority, a State and a government.

Shame!

As for our food, the daily menu consisted of potatoes, olives, burgul (broken wheat), cauliflower. We used to spend our time in weeping and telling stories of our countries and hearing news from freshly arriving prisoners, while we dressed their wounds with water and rags from the clothes left behind by departing inmates. The Syrian fugitives from military service spending part of their sentences in one of the wings of the Mazzeh prison were charged with our service. We used to call them the "fugitives".

The prisoners who were at the point of death were sent to the Al-Mouassat hospital that was close to the jail. There, the Military Police stood guard over them. Once, one of the young men detained among us, accused of being a partisan of the "Lebanese Forces" was severely tortured by electric shock and returned to solitary confinement, but when signs of death were apparent on him, they returned him to our midst in the large cell. His skin was bluish, his mouth was frothy and blood was oozing from his ears and nose. We told our jailers that he was dying and there was nothing we could do for him. They answered: "Let him die, the devil take him. May you all die!" We tried artificial respiration on him and wiping his face with water. His respiration soon became rapid, he began to gasp then, practically unconscious, he looked at our faces, smiled a sad smile and passed away. We began to shout for help from the jailers. But when we told them that he died, they cursed us, then came in and carried him away to the Al-Mouassat hospital when it was too late.

We later learned that he joined a long list of Lebanese buried in mass graves in the vicinity of the Mazzeh prison guarded by the Syrian Special Forces to prevent anyone from approaching without special permission. Nevertheless, the suffering in the Mazzeh prison is nothing compared with the "Sab' Bahrat" (Seven Seas) prison in Damascus held by the Moukhabarat of the Syrian Air Force, or with the prison of Palmyra where hungry dogs, snakes and rats as well as other hair-raising means worthy of horror films, are used to torment the prisoners. The condemned to death are impaled.

Among the tidings of the Mazzeh prison where I spent five years of my life, there is one regarding the former Lebanese deputy, the late Dr Farid Serhal who was incarcerated when the Syrians abducted him in 1989. In addition to light beatings, they forced him to clean the latrines and sweep the floors in order to humiliate him because he was candidate for the Presidency of the Lebanese Republic. They used to call him "dog".

As for Boutros Khawand, he is incarcerated in ward 601 of the Mazzeh prison. He has become a shadow of himself due to coercion and torture. I will never forget what the jailers did to torture a young soldier of the Lebanese Army accused of military action against the Syrian occupation: He was tied or crucified upon a heavy wooden device in the form of a cross - because he was a Christian as the commander of the prison Bassam Hassan, said - that they tied with ropes and cables then forced him to run in circles, beating him as if he were a horse. Eventually, they raised him with a winch and left him crucified for nine days in the sun. The blood oozed from all his body, including his mouth and ears. And when Bassel Assad died, the torturers pounded us like crazy bulls and left us for a whole week without food because they thought we were pleased with his death!

After spending five years in jail without judgment, as all the Lebanese there, the Syrians decided to liberate me in answer to solicitations in my favor. They brought me in a truck to Anjar where I sat on the floor awaiting the arrival of General Ghazi Kanaan who told me point blank: "I hope you learned your lesson and I warn you that the next time, I will pulverize your flesh and bones. You must learn that you and those who are behind you shall live under our boots for ever and that your destiny is Syria and there is nothing you can do about it!"

Thereupon, they transferred me to the Anjar prison where Adnan Balloul and his henchmen received me with a round of farewell beating before handing me over to their puppet Lebanese Secret Service. Then, as if all the beating I had received in five years were not enough, they fell upon me once more, beating me savagely. I will never forget the sight of the chief of the henchmen in Anjar, Colonel Slayman Salameh whom all those who have passed through that prison regard as the most savage person on earth.

The Lebanese Secret Service received me at ten o'clock PM. Upon my arrival, the investigation chief in the prison of the Ministry of Defense, Imad Kaakour, who wanted to interrogate me, started to beat me. I told him: "Are five years of torture in Syrian jails not enough? What more do you want from me? I have forgotten to speak Lebanese. I have forgotten the names of my parents. What more do you want from me?" My words fell on deaf ears. He was bent on beating me and on establishing an investigation official report to present to his chief, Jamil Sayed.

They forced me to fingerprint a blank paper, then transferred me to the Military Police jail in the Noura Palace, where I spent three days before one of the pro-Syrian politicians intervened, telling them that five years are enough to teach him, what more do you want from him? He has become the shadow of a man! And so was I liberated?

I still have to say that Hussein Taliss, the criminal who escaped from the Roumieh prison, accused of the murder of the French Military Attaché and of the attempt on the life of President Camille Chamoun in addition to the explosion of tens of booby trapped cars in East Beirut during the war, is at present one of the top investigators in the Mazzeh prison, in charge of the investigation with Lebanese prisoners. He is and is active in the Syrian Moukhabarat, Lebanese section, on major security operations in Lebanon. It is said that he is responsible of many crimes. He resides with his family under a false identity in the Abou Remmaneh quarter.

What a sorry bunch of losers. Dr. Landis, you would do yourself a great service by disassociating yourself from this small-time crook named Ayman Abdul Nour. His crooked history of opportunism and ass-kissing is shameful. He used to take college exams using fake IDs on behalf of some well-known sons of Generals who were at the same university (Damascus college of Civil Engineering).

Syrian president Basher al-Assad has told a UN commissioner of inquiry into the murder of former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri that he is willing to collaborate with it on condition that he and his family receive protection, an investigator working for the commission revealed on Friday.

Some people find it funny to do something like that and it amazes me that people are so frivalent about the topic. How can one talk about it so much? Well I'm going to go back to my computer now and play mac online poker. Wish me luck!

In other news, Hariri Jr. declares that the 2nd Mehlis report will indict several (Syrian) people and will not be affected by recent developments. It will also say that Syria did not cooperate.

Funny how Saad-al-Saaye3 knows what will be in the report in advance. This man is single-handedly (with US/France backing of course) is bringing sanctions on the Syrian people. Why any Syrian and Arab doesn't have total contempt for this SOB is beyond me.

Total contempt for what? Because he is trying to find out who had killed his father?

Watching Saddam's trials, Bashar's troubles and the Lebanon exhumations of bodies at newly discovered mass graves, one cannot but help believe that future leaders, Presidents and MidEast dictators will think twice from now on before ordering the type of assasinations and mass killings that our area has been used to. If nothing else, the latest developments may well act as a deterence for the region's future leaders.

Yeah, he might be trying to find out who killed his father, wink wink, but in the process, he's serving the interests of the Neocons and Israel to the core: Rolling Syria back (as planned in Clean Break), weakening Assad without bringing him down (Saddam-style in '90), and isolating and sanctioning Syria while working to disarm Hizbullah.

Now, Ehsani2, if you don't have a problem with that unfolding scenario, or if you just view this whole investigation as benign, then I must say that you are out of touch with reality.

You are taking all of this with complete idealism: people are looking for the truth, these timely 'discoveries' of mass graves (of which most are the doing of Lebanese factions) as future deterrents of supposed massacres by the Syrians, and if you believe that Saad is an honest, clean, and uncorrupt person, then I have a bridge to sell you...

A report in The Wall Street Journal claims that senior Bush aides have decided, at least for now, that it is better to push for changed behavior in Damascus than risk the perils of a political upheaval. The state department is successfully promoting what is described as “an Arafat strategy” towards Syria where the U.S. Will be waging a similar freeze-out campaign toward Assad. The biggest source of unease over an active regime-change approach is concern about the sorry state of Syria’s opposition. A recent U.S. intelligence report concluded that likely successors to Mr. Assad could prove even worse for the U.S. interests, while other area experts fear a surge in support for the Muslim Brotherhood, which wants to create an Islamic state in Syria. The report concludes by saying that “we should maintain ties with the dictatorship because the place is not ready for democracy”

Damascene Blood, the day when your friend Bashar will kill your father and that you'll refrain from seeking justice to avoid 'serving Israel's interests', you'll be able to give lessons to other people.

telling others to shut up is not exactly an indicator of intelligence or good manners.

It's funny that you automatically assume that Bashar & Co. killed Hariri. It's also funny that you, Saad, and every Lebanese person accusing Syria, as well as Mehlis, are just going on a 'hunch' and you guys have ZERO evidence, other than fabricated witness testimony.

Frankly, I don't give a damn if Assad and Co. were indeed behind this, and I would call for their punishment. But until the evidence is there, don't go around throwing wild accusations just because you feel strongly about something. It just doesn't make it true. That's all.

In short, apply the adage: Innocent until PROVEN guilty.

If you ask me, the Syrian intelligence services are too incompetent to have conducted the assassination. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

In short, Regimes such as Saddam's, or the Assads one want this Golden Rule when it applies to them, and they remember it, but when staying in power for decades using no rules of law against their citizens, that Golden Rule had no value to them what so ever. Thousands of men and women perished in the Mukhabarat basements under torture, and people were imprisonned for any (probable) cause for years and years and some of them were proven innocent and got out of jails not able to seek any apology or compensation for the wrong doing that was inflicted on them.

Though I support normal trials for thugs like Saddam or the Assads, I find it very unjust that life deals with people this unjust way: The thugs kill and imprison without any respect to the rules of law, and when it is their turn, they are given the respect they do not deserve and the treatment they have deprived tens of thousands, even the millions of their citizens of, and they have the audacity to ask for the application of that Golden Rule!

Yet, it is good to see them behind bars at the end. Hopefully Bashar Assad and his gang will face trial too (unlike the lucky few dictators who died in their glories! (which is another trick of this unfairness of life).

How about Avian Flu? did the Syrians make you sneeze more often 7ayate? YAAAAAAAAAAAAAY

Lebanese torured in Syrian prisons. Your post was more like a long story man. Glad that the prison taught you some writing skills. I am sure you were not at home knitting when the mukhabarat just busted into your house and arrested you. Were you sniping at Syrian troops from rooftops like all of your chicken mates?

I know that the Syrian regime has imprisoned many people unjustly, and many were imprisoned as scapegoats to cover for the higher-up thugs. That said, I think we should hold the higher moral stand and not go down to their level. Although a bullet to the head might sound attractive, it will just turn those guys into heroes in the minds of many. A fair trial, once there is hard evidence, is definitely much better.

Lebanon

Wow, so somehow, you think that if Syria turns into Iraq, that your Lebanese ass will be spared? LOL.

Ehsani2

I think bringing up the issue of mass graves and asking Mehlis to investigate is a sign of desparation of those who are targetting Syria. Funny that most of these clan thugs in Lebanon have so much blood on their hands, it has to be the most stupid move I've ever seen.

Plese enlighten us with how you would define "fair" trial and "hard" evidence.As you answer the question, please spare us the references to the Israel/Neo.con CD that you seem to have planted into your brain cells.

When he was caught, he was scared to hell, and looked like the despicable coward he is, thinking the US would treat him like he treated his victims.

It turned out that he became aware that he was given Rights, and now he is acting like the "lion" he thinks he is.

It is a mistake to treat thugs like him and Assad with any respect, for even when he was facing his victims, he felt no remorse and still thought that he deserved "things".

Such personalities deserve no respect, and no pitty. They should face the direct anger of the people and be mutulated the way they did to their victims;.

I said so, and I know that we have to start some where to return the rules of Law and common sense to the people.

Syria's dictators are no different, and they should face trial, but I hope the ones who will try them will be a little more intelligent in giving these thugs exactly what they deserve of despise!

As for "Lebanon Divided", why do I have the feeling that you are serving the Assad regime in what you have just posted above? Simialr comment toward the guy who insulted Syrians earlier. I have the feeling these posters are directly related to the Witness Mukhabarat member, Husam Husam.

I am not yet sure that the regime “will” fall. It is not an easy feat no matter what Mehlis comes up with. It took 150,000 U.S. soldiers to get Saddam’s regime to fall. Barring similar action (unlikely), it is not easy to unseat a 35-year old regime, which has had time to master every trick in the book. But to call for a fair trail and hard evidence is not exactly ignores the fact that no matter how hard the evidence you present to an Arab mind, it will not be hard/strong/fair enough to overcome the CD. The vast majority of people in the region still think it was the CIA/Mossad that were behind Sep 11th. I trust you agree with them?

They could have just used a single bullet like they did when they assassinated ex-Saudi King, when Kissinger said he is out of line.

"It took 150,000 U.S. soldiers to get Saddam’s regime to fall"

Saddam regime fell long before the first American soldier drove into Iraq. He was already hiding in the spider hole when they crossed the Kuwait-Iraq boarder.

"That, and about 12 million Shi'a and 6 million Kurds".

Yeah, that is 18 million bugs in the sand, as coward as the 17 Million bugs to the West.

None of this info is a surprising matter. But spending 300+ Billion Dollars and committing almost the entire resources of the richest country in the world, that is armed with the latest military technologies, having the world's most professional and best trained army, fighting against the world's most backward, most technologically and mentally illiterate people. After all this time, all you have to show for is over 20,000 American casualties, over 300,000 Iraqi casualties and this shattered country that is called Iraq, utterly destroyed and no end in sight to the conflict. Something is seriously wrong here, or that is just the way it was designed from the start.

They should have used a single bullet. But that is illegal under U.S. Laws!!!! What a fucking joke

Syria is engaged in clandestine talks about reopening peace negotiations with Israel in an attempt to head off United Nations sanctions next week over its alleged role in the February assassination of Rafiq Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister.

Bashar Assad, the Syrian president, is being urged by Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan to restart bilateral talks with Israel that collapsed in 2000. Discussions were under way in Mecca yesterday at a summit of the Islamic Conference Organisation, chaired by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and attended by most Arab heads of government.

President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, the main US ally in the Arab world, received a letter from Mr Assad on Tuesday about the peace proposal and the Hariri affair. Mr Mubarak said Egypt and other Arab countries were "exerting great efforts" to prevent an escalation of the crisis. Mr Assad did not attend the Mecca summit, though Syria was represented at a high level.

A senior Foreign Office source said Arab leaders were actively trying to avoid another regional conflagration that could occur if western pressure led to Mr Assad's regime being toppled. He said British policy was to force Syria to reform but "not to humiliate them".

But US neo-conservatives are urging the US Bush administration to isolate Mr Assad, even if that means blocking talks with Israel. Richard Perle, former Pentagon adviser, said: "Assad has never been weaker and we should take advantage of that."

For full story (if you can be bothered) see http://www.guardian.co.uk/syria/story/0,13031,1661781,00.html

Where the hell did you get the 30,000 iraqi's from? the US will naturally underestimate the figures which they dont even count. the last NGO count was 100,000 almost a year ago so plz spare us the pentagon press briefings

Eli Cohen was tortured, tried and convicted as a Mossad Agent by the Syrian Military Court, without legal representation, despite the intervention and protests of the international community. He was hanged in Syria on May 15, 1965.

For 38 years the Cohen Family has been waiting and suffering, unable to visit Eli's graveside nor pay their last respects, as his body remains imprisoned somewhere within Syria. To this date, no last rites have been performed for Eli Cohen after his death, a right that every human being deserves.

We, the undersigned voices from all nations, without distinction of race or beliefs: religious or secular, beseech you to rectify this tragedy. Return the remains of Eli Cohen to his family in Israel for proper burial. This would be a humanitarian gesture of good will, understanding, and another step towards world peace on behalf of Syria.

Mercy ,you should ask Sharon to free the Golan hights if you want Cohen back,untill then keep dreaming ,Israel proved in leaving south lebanon and Gazza while staying in the Golan that the only languege Israel understand is force not peacfull jestures .

""""" Mercy ,you should ask Sharon to free the Golan hights if you want Cohen back,untill then keep dreaming ,Israel proved in leaving south lebanon and Gazza while staying in the Golan that the only languege Israel understand is force not peacfull jestures .

"""""""

That should tell a lot about how little the brain of a Baathy is, or that what the value system Baathies follow is!

He thinks they have a treasure, holding the remains of a human being who served his country by being a spy in another country, a thing that takes place all the times in this world of wicked humanity. This guy thinks that those remains (50 years old) are worth the Golan heights.

And while this dummy equates the remains of another human being (enemy or a friend)with a big chunk of treasured land, and wants the Israelis to hold his value as equivalent to the Golan Heights (Land), this dummy does not hold the same value for even the most important human being in Syria (A citizen of Syria). Syrians can die or even traded for with other countries for political purposes, and Syrians can even be spied on to serve another country and their names and personal informations shipped to other countries in exchange for a smile toward the regime.

This dummy found a "great" opportunity in what another human being (an Israeli perhaps) has posted here asking for the remains of Eli Cohen, a hero for the jewish people, and a hero in my eyes too, so he can ask to "liberate" the Golan Heights all together in exchange for what appeared to him as a "desparate" need to get the remains of Eli Cohen.